Novice looking for guidance on my first outdoor photo grow.

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

I’m looking for any tips or information to help me turn my girls into the best I possibly can.
If anyone has any tips for me even not regarding the trellis please share. Below is more information regarding my grow with some photo of plants prior to be trying to trellises.

Main questions I have is regarding trellising these plants I probably should have done it a lot sooner. And I have no idea what I’m doing or what would be my best course or action Is me bending and weaving such a large plant such as below a bad thing? Will it actually help me achieve higher yields than just letting them grown without a trell

this is another plant I attempted to trellis I was able to manipulate some of the branches down to be weaved in but I still have to large branches that I can’t bend to much without snapping. My plan was maybe put another trellis over top once the lower growth picks up.

This one I just threw a net over to let it grow and then maybe stake it down eventually.

View attachment 5309541

I’ve grown autos for maybe two seasons indoors with some crap mars led lights but I started an outdoor photo garden as I wanted to start producing higher yields and avoid the electricity bills. However my photo plants aren’t plant an water such as the autos were.

information that might help with any tips

Detroit Michigan

Soil: Ocean Forest / regular earth after transplant

Nutrients: Dry Fertilizer - Fox Farm All Puropose and beginning to add Fruit and Flower. I also add Grow Big slightly to the water maybe once a month and foiler spray a very low mixture.

There is tomato cages in nearly all of them

they all started in 5gl or 15g fabricshad transplanted them into the ground maybe early June for some others have been within the first weeks of july

Any tips on anything would be greatly appealing

DancesWithWeeds · Jul 18, 2023

Your plants look like they are doing good. I don't trellis my outdoor plants. I think you will get a good harvest it you just let them grow. Remember, you are growing outside where the plants were meant to grow in the first place and they weren't meant to be tied down. It's OK, but not natural.

How many plants and how big? They actually look too big to me to try LST. If you want more light in just spread the branches. Harvest here happens in lat Sept or early Oct. and the plants have already started to flower. You should see some flowering starting. If you don't harvest until Oct it appears tome that you will have a fairly massive crop. Large crops require a lot of trim time. Your outdoor plants should be massive compared to indoor.

FirstCavApache64 · Jul 18, 2023

Trellising or more commonly called SCROG in cannabis is not necessary for outdoor plants. Indoors you're shooting for a flat canopy as the light falls off very quickly the further away from the light that the bud is. The sun is on average 93 million miles away from the earth so the 3'-4' difference in height is nothing. Using a cage to spread them out for better airflow is a good idea especially as you get heavy buds and high humidity late in flower. Good looking plants for anyone much less your first outdoor grow. Hope you have a great harvest.

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

DancesWithWeeds said:
DancesWithWeeds said:

Your plants look like they are doing good. I don't trellis my outdoor plants. I think you will get a good harvest it you just let them grow. Remember, you are growing outside where the plants were meant to grow in the first place and they weren't meant to be tied down. It's OK, but not natural.

How many plants and how big? They actually look too big to me to try LST. If you want more light in just spread the branches. Harvest here happens in lat Sept or early Oct. and the plants have already started to flower. You should see some flowering starting. If you don't harvest until Oct it appears tome that you will have a fairly massive crop. Large crops require a lot of trim time. Your outdoor plants should be massive compared to indoor.

Click to expand...

DancesWithWeeds said:

Your plants look like they are doing good. I don't trellis my outdoor plants. I think you will get a good harvest it you just let them grow. Remember, you are growing outside where the plants were meant to grow in the first place and they weren't meant to be tied down. It's OK, but not natural.

How many plants and how big? They actually look too big to me to try LST. If you want more light in just spread the branches. Harvest here happens in lat Sept or early Oct. and the plants have already started to flower. You should see some flowering starting. If you don't harvest until Oct it appears tome that you will have a fairly massive crop. Large crops require a lot of trim time. Your outdoor plants should be massive compared to indoor.

Click to expand...

I appreciate your input thank you, might you have any other tips for me? Ways to get the best kolas, sugars or anything?

please excuse any information I may ask twice English isn’t my first language and something’s maybe difficult for me to explain or ask.

My idea of netting them had to do with wanting to support my branches when flowering does happen.
I've seen others have problems with Kolas getting too large and then snapping off the branch. I also thought netting them would help with yield and maybe producing more better kolas.

My smallest plant is probably just about 3 feet and my largest nearing 7 feet. I have 11 plants in total 2 of them are on the smaller size with the rest being anywhere from 5/7 feet and pretty bushy.

I do have a few that are showing signs the flower stage starting soon and one/two that are actually in full flower already as I put them in a more shaded area.

My time in trim jail isn’t much of a worry for me I have purchased some machines to help me along with that but I’ll of course need to do some hand trimming to clean them up aswell. (But that’s what friends are for. )

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

FirstCavApache64 said:
Trellising or more commonly called SCROG in cannabis is not necessary for outdoor plants. Indoors you're shooting for a flat canopy as the light falls off very quickly the further away from the light that the bud is. The sun is on average 93 million miles away from the earth so the 3'-4' difference in height is nothing. Using a cage to spread them out for better airflow is a good idea especially as you get heavy buds and high humidity late in flower. Good looking plants for anyone much less your first outdoor grow. Hope you have a great harvest.

Wouldn’t me netting the plant having the branches pulled outwards to an even height of each other promote it to grow better aswell? I was considering losing the net and just pulling down the branches with ties to kinda of be even.

I really like to learn everything I can, I’m happy with myself they have turned out so good lately. Except for fighting some bugs. (Knock on wood).

dry fertilizer have been very good to me

SnidleyBluntash · Jul 18, 2023

What about cleaning up the bottom so you can see and water more easy?

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

SnidleyBluntash said:
What about cleaning up the bottom so you can see and water more easy?

That is another thing I joined here to ask others.

for outdoor plants should I defoliate them? I’ve had people tell me yes and others tell me no.

I am probably going to do a trimming here soon unless someone talks me out of it. At the moment I’ve just been letting the plant tell me what it was removed. ie. yellowing/dead)

obijohn · Jul 18, 2023

It's outdoors, just let it grow. When I start a plant I either top it or tie it down ONCE to stimulate branching and a more bush like appearance. But that's just a personal preference

FirstCavApache64 · Jul 18, 2023

Tryingtolearnmich said:
That is another thing I joined here to ask others.

for outdoor plants should I defoliate them? I’ve had people tell me yes and others tell me no.

I am probably going to do a trimming here soon unless someone talks me out of it. At the moment I’ve just been letting the plant tell me what it was removed. ie. yellowing/dead)

No reason to defoliate unless you're having bad humidity issues. Taking some stuff of the very bottom to help get air flow is fine and can help keep pest issues down. I wouldn't lollipop it or strip any healthy leaves up top if it was me. Plants that get big need more support than a scrog net. Posts driven into the ground and welded wire fencing wrapped around them as a cage is good. Take a look in the outdoor growing thread to get some other ideas of how people stake and do support for bigger plants outdoor. The wind and thunderstorms here in VA can get bad and snap plants in two right down the middle.

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

FirstCavApache64 said:
No reason to defoliate unless you're having bad humidity issues. Taking some stuff of the very bottom to help get air flow is fine and can help keep pest issues down. I wouldn't lollipop it or strip any healthy leaves up top if it was me. Plants that get big need more support than a scrog net. Posts driven into the ground and welded wire fencing wrapped around them as a cage is good. Take a look in the outdoor growing thread to get some other ideas of how people stake and do support for bigger plants outdoor. The wind and thunderstorms here in VA can get bad and snap plants in two right down the middle.

I don’t fear humidity/rain issues until probably October around Detroit. Im praying flower come early to avoid that hassle. I honestly put them in the ground because I was tired of having the water them nearly daily due to the excess heat we had for the month. I lucky added tomato cages to the interior of each plant before they grew up so it’s pretty well supported from the inside with some decent stalks on it. I’ll look into those large cages I can put around the plants but it might be out of my price range.

While I’ve had some munched on leaves i started a pest management regiment some time ago neem and mosquito dunking most of the area. it seems to be doing a good job. I released 3000 ladybugs at one point they stuck around for about two weeks and took off so it was back to the neem treatmentets.

thank you for your input i apologize for my lengthy response if it’s even read

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 18, 2023

obijohn said:
It's outdoors, just let it grow. When I start a plant I either top it or tie it down ONCE to stimulate branching and a more bush like appearance. But that's just a personal preference

So I do have quite a few different things going on with the plants. Some of them I topped, others I tried to fim and left some just to grow themselves.

The plants you topped do you pull all those down even with then canopy to promote the others to grow as well? I would do this with my auto flowers id assume it would be the same?

That why I was leaning toward netting around the side and pulling those tall branches outwards and down level to the canopy.

I understand it's a personal preference I'm actually really thankful I have a number of different plants to play around with and see what works the best for me I assume.

But it's always good getting others perspectives.

Thank you for your input!

The-Liquor · Jul 19, 2023

Tryingtolearnmich said:
I don’t fear humidity/rain issues until probably October around Detroit.

I'm on the west side of the state. It's been extremely wet and humid over here this year. This is only my second outdoor grow this year but from helping friends with their outdoor grows and from my limited experience humidity and rain should be what outdoor northern growers should be most concerned about. Tough to get past 2nd or 3rd week of October in Michigan without a hoophouse or cover to keep the rain and dew off them. Last year we had legit 1-2 feet of snow by Nov 10th. All I'm saying is I'm glad the east side of the state has been dry for you but Michigan weather changes rapidly as you know and when it gets cold here the whole state gets cold.

Raining every other day. I have not had to water my 30-gal pots but once this year.. Really pissing me off to be honest. I start covering my plants when it rains and most nights after 3-4 weeks into flower. Last year I used porch umbrellas to cover my plants every night haha, this year I purchased a greenhouse material. Id thin out the ladies a little or make sure you have a cover. Just something to think about

O yeah, seeing a lot of white moths this year, those dirty fucks. keep spraying!

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 20, 2023

The-Liquor said:
I'm on the west side of the state. It's been extremely wet and humid over here this year. This is only my second outdoor grow this year but from helping friends with their outdoor grows and from my limited experience humidity and rain should be what outdoor northern growers should be most concerned about. Tough to get past 2nd or 3rd week of October in Michigan without a hoophouse or cover to keep the rain and dew off them. Last year we had legit 1-2 feet of snow by Nov 10th. All I'm saying is I'm glad the east side of the state has been dry for you but Michigan weather changes rapidly as you know and when it gets cold here the whole state gets cold.

Raining every other day. I have not had to water my 30-gal pots but once this year.. Really pissing me off to be honest. I start covering my plants when it rains and most nights after 3-4 weeks into flower. Last year I used porch umbrellas to cover my plants every night haha, this year I purchased a greenhouse material. Id thin out the ladies a little or make sure you have a cover. Just something to think about

O yeah, seeing a lot of white moths this year, those dirty fucks. keep spraying!

I’m probably going to take your umbrella idea once October comes around or when we start seeing more rainfall. I have a bunch of picnic table umbrellas laying around with the stands opening them up when I start to get some buds might not be a bad idea.

I have been trying to budget and save funds as in the future I would love to be able to get a hoop house. I know they’re not all the expensive and can even done in a DYI style. But if I’m going to do it I’m going to try and add on all the perks possible such as auto roll ups and things of that nature.

I was actually considering turning my old gazebo into a type of hoop house I would love to cover some of these girls and force flower early. But that’s a hassle and job of its own. Last year I was running close to November and had a plant or two that was just not finishing. I’m hoping not to run into this issue again.

As to bug those damn white moths! About a month prior to me putting my girls outside I went to battle with my entire yard putting down insecticides. Up until the past two weeks I haven’t had much of problem but i am sometimes noticing moths. I had a little fungus gnat problem that I released 3000 ladybugs on, they stuck around for week and half and took a good position of the gnats and others with them. Then I started my neem oil / mosquito dunks treatments to correct the rest the problem. I’ve actually been mixing extra dunks and neem in a trashcan and have been pumping it/spraying it even on my lawn to help recently.

Thank you for your input greatly appreciated

Tryingtolearnmich · Jul 23, 2023

Posting photo update of some of the girls.

I started trying to pull branches down to open her up more.

This plant I'm trying to figure out what to do with. Netted some of it but I can't do much with that one stalk. Might be better for me to just remove the net.

Prior to stretching and securing net.

fter n net was pulled and secure

DancesWithWeeds · Jul 23, 2023

You have some healthy looking plants. I never use a net outside. It's really not necessary. When you do use a net you don't want to hold the plant down, it restricts the light and gives the bugs a place to hide. Also you need the airflow to keep from getting mold.

A better way is to get some bamboo stakes and spreed the plant out. That way the sun get in, there's airflow, and you can control the pests.

Novice looking for guidance on my first outdoor photo grow.

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